The Neil Lennon Verdict Explained (I Think)

While one side of my brain remains baffled by John Wilson's acquittal, the other thinks it might be able to explain why the jury reached its decision.

The critical element in the BBC report is this passage -

"The jury of seven women and eight men deleted the reference to making a sectarian remark from the charge relating to breach of the peace, and that the offence was aggravated by religious prejudice."

I may have this all wrong, and have not examined the relevant legislation - pulling out one's own fingernails with a pair of pliers would be an infinitely more enlightening and profitable pastime - but the wording of that report suggests to me that it has been framed in such a way that the alleged crime which is alleged to have been aggravated by sectarianism cannot be separated from the aggravation. In other words, in cases such as this, where a sectarian aggravation has been libelled, it is not enough merely for the crime to be proved for a conviction to be obtained; in order for the prosecution to be successful, the aggravation must also be proved.

If this is true then the law is not just an ass, it's ass backwards. For want of a better expression, an aggravation should always be the icing on the cake in such matters. A crime must always have been committed before it can be aggravated. What we might have here is an aggravation in search of a crime to attach itself to.

If this is the case, it suggests to me that the pitifully low standard of legislative draftsmanship displayed by the Scottish Parliament since devolution shows no signs of improving. Holyrood has a track record of producing badly written laws, and this one may be no exception.

It could also suggest that we might be on the way back to those days recalled by G. M. Trevelyan in his 'English Social History', when the phrase 'You might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb' had real meaning. Trevelyan records that in the 18th and 19th Centuries juries were often unwilling to convict in cases of minor crimes, often committed out of desperation, which carried grossly disproportionate penalties (ah yes, 'Merrie England', the birthplace of transportation and the man-trap). Given the political focus on stamping out sectarianism - a futile exercise to conduct in the west of Scotland, but I suppose God loves a trier - it may be the case that juries will not convict unless they are absolutely sure of guilt, applying a self-imposed standard of absolute and not merely reasonable doubt to their deliberations and allowing perfectly good cases which would have succeeded without the allegation of sectarian aggravation to fall.

And just as well, because as a self- proclaimed civil libertarian one can't really take any issue with 100 guilty men going free and so on and so forth and all that.

If any of the above is not the case, then I would be very interested to know whether the Crown Office was placed under any pressure by the soi-disant, ersatz 'Scottish Government' to prosecute this matter with a sectarian aggravation attached. The Tartanissimo has held forth at length on the need for anti-sectarian legislation, and what better way of driving home the need for such laws than a high-profile trial in which it will be alleged (with the word 'alleged' in this context meaning that the events were broadcast around the world) that a high-profile Catholic was subjected to a sectarian assault during the course of his employment as manager of Celtic Football Club, with the scene of the crime being pitchside during a league fixture. In Scotland, you don't get more high profile than that. If it is the case that the Crown Office was leaned on to make sure that the sectarian element stayed on the indictment to the bitter end, we're further down the road to Tartanitarianism than even I have feared.